Carrie (2002)

There's only one thing you need to know about the 2002 TV-movie remake of Carrie: IT ENDS WITH CARRIE ALIVE. On her way to Florida, driven by Sue Snell. To start a new life. Had the remake been more successful, it would have been a new life HELPING OTHER PEOPLE WITH TELEKINESIS, documented on a new TV show. I couldn't make this shit up.

Up until that point, it was actually pretty decent. Though the format of showing the events of and leading up to the prom interspersed with police interviews from the days after is actually much closer to the novel, it causes the movie to lose momentum. It also recreates a scene that was in the book, but not in the movie, of a four-year-old Carrie causing rocks to fall from the sky after she sees a teenage neighbor sunbathing topless. Though it adds some backstory, it also adds a lot of bad CGI. The new Sue Snell has an arrogant quality that is totally absent from her portrayal in either the book or the movie. Angela Bettis, also seen as a total misfit in May, was pretty decent as the title character, though she lacked the ethereal quality of Sissy Spacek when she finally gets dressed to go to the prom. Emilie de Ravin is okay as mean-girl Chris Hargensen, although I have no idea why they rewrote the story to make her have second thoughts at the end.

I guess since its a TV movie, this "reimagining of Carrie for a new generation" was interesting enough, but lacked the sheer nastiness and horror of the 70s original. The scenes with the crazy mother (played here by Patricia Clarkson) were way toned-down, though the scene where Chris and her cronies killed the pig is much longer, and much more harrowing. Also, it seems like there is a lot more useless exposition, as if the movie was geared toward teen girls who wouldn't otherwise understand the themes. The prom scene is still fairly shocking, though the moments leading up to the fated drop of the bucket lack the dreamlike feel of the original. Also missing is perhaps the most iconic moment from the original, the hand out of the grave at the end. Though I guess it wouldn't scare anyone now.

But like I said, all you really need to know is that this movie was originally conceived as a pilot for a TV series in which Carrie moves to Florida and helps others with telekinesis. Jesus Christ.

Black Christmas (1974)

My future husband started school a few weeks ago and has a lot of studying to do, which gives me the perfect opportunity to hog up our shared Netflix queue with all the stuff I want to watch and he doesn't. First up was the original, 1974 Black Christmas, which I've been wanting to see since I caught the remake with my friend and usual-horror-movie-watching partner Rob over Christmas vacation last year. It starred Party of Five's Lacey Chabert and Michelle Trachtenberg, who, in my head, I always call Harriet the Spy, as girls you don't care about getting killed by a guy who not only uses eyeballs for tree ornaments, but eats them (prompting an 8-year-old who totally should not have been in our theater to ask his mom if they were having eyeballs for dinner.)

I suspected that the original, often touted as the first real slasher movie and a godfather to Halloween, would far surpass the eyeball movie. And, mostly, it did. The film, about a group of sorority sisters picked off one-by-one by an unseen killer, established the through-the-eyes-of-the-stalker perspective so common in modern horror. Though Black Christmas is extremely dated, what with all the horrible 70s fashions and hairdos, it's also much more vulgar than the relatively bloodless--literally and figuratively--Halloween. Everyone boozes it up, especially the housemother, who says of her charges "These broads would hump the Leaning Tower of Pisa if they could get up there." One of the girls-Barb, played by Margot Kidder-calls her mother a gold-plated whore, notes that "you can't rape a townie," and gives beer to a kid at a community Christmas party. Jess (Olivia Hussey) is dead-set on an abortion, no matter how much her boyfriend tries to talk her out of it.

Whereas the remake has almost no character development, the original is 95 percent character development. That part of the movie is compelling and fun--but when the killer shows up, it's just not scary. I actually dozed off, which, though most of my friends will tell you is a common occurrence with me during movies, it usually doesn't happen at 3 p.m.